<?php
/**
 * <https://y.st./>
 * Copyright © 2018 Alex Yst <mailto:copyright@y.st>
 * 
 * This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 * 
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 * 
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program. If not, see <https://www.gnu.org./licenses/>.
**/

$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Another supporter',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<img src="/img/CC_BY-SA_4.0/y.st./weblog/2018/04/28.jpg" alt="Red stems and white buds" class="framed-centred-image" width="649" height="480"/>
<section id="dreams">
	<h2>Dream journal</h2>
	<p>
		Last night, I had the gayest dream I&apos;ve ever had.
		Strangely though, I was topping, despite my waking instincts putting me as a bottom.
		I won&apos;t go into details though because of the obvious nature of the dream.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="instruction">
	<h2>Driving instruction</h2>
	<p>
		My driving instructor was supposed to meet me today, but they never showed.
		I got there way too early, so some of my wasted time is my own fault, but I also waited forty minutes after our scheduled meet time.
		I&apos;d initially been going to wait a full hour, but I really don&apos;t have the time for that, and after the first half-hour, it was pretty clear they&apos;d either forgotten or decided not to come.
		Probably the former.
		<del>Anyway, this instructor is slightly more reliable than my last one, but I get the sinking feeling they&apos;re not going to come through for me either.
		The worst part is that I can&apos;t job hunt or leave my current place of employment until either they finish teaching me or my permit expires and it becomes too late.
		Even though I know they probably won&apos;t come through for me, I can&apos;t just proceed as I was going to after my previous instructor made me wait months to get nowhere.
		The waiting period starts anew to give the new instructor the benefit of the doubt, but I only have a couple months total to wait this time before the permit expires.
		If they hadn&apos;t offered to help me, I could be job-hunting right now.</del>
	</p>
	<p>
		<del>Then again, maybe they <strong>*will*</strong> follow through.
		We&apos;ll see.</del>
	</p>
	<p>
		<ins>I apologise for the dramatic stuff earlier today.
		I&apos;m under a lot of stress.
		Anyway, they happened to drop by the workplace even though today was their day off, and I talked to them about it.
		We&apos;re on for next week.
		They&apos;d forgotten about our appointment as I&apos;d assumed, but they claim it was because they&apos;d unexpectedly needed to close last night.
		Supposedly, they had to take care of all the closing tasks themselves.
		I&apos;m very confused, as they left work before I did last night, and <strong>*I*</strong> was one of three people that actually stayed and closed the store.
		They must&apos;ve meant something entirely different.
		Maybe they have another job?
		I don&apos;t know.
		In any case, I didn&apos;t question them about that as I didn&apos;t want to seem like I&apos;m suspicious.
		And now that I&apos;ve had time to calm down, I guess I&apos;m not.</ins>
	</p>
</section>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		I received a letter today:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Hello Alex,
		</p>
		<p>
			I came across your website while doing some research for an assignment while taking CS 1102 at UO<span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span> several months ago.
			I had never worked with JAVA previously and seeing how you implemented the assignment helped me quite a bit.
			I don&apos;t even remember which assignment it was, but I do remember not struggling nearly as much in in the rest of CS 1102 or the followup in CS 1103 having only visited and looked through your site the one time.
		</p>
		<p>
			I do remember that I ended up doing the assignment in VB.Net of which I was much more familiar, and then porting it to Java. That in itself was a huge learning bonus!
		</p>
		<p>
			I have not visited the site in quite some time, but this term I am taking CS 1104 and find myself struggling again.
			My first thought was to find your site again and see what I could learn from you.
		</p>
		<p>
			I was very saddened to see that UO<span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span> had given you the take down notice.
			While I understand their not wanting answers to their coursework being published online, your site provided a very comprehensive online &quot;tutoring&quot; resource that I feel is missing from UO<span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>.
			It was also upsetting to me to see that the way they handled the take down notice was very cold and harsh.
		</p>
		<p>
			To finish up, I just wanted to send you a message thanking you for unintentionally assisting me with my studies at UO<span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>.
			I am a firm believer in the overall concept of UO<span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>, and I hope that their treatment of the situation has not discouraged you from continuing on with your studies there.
		</p>
		<p>
			Once again, thank you and I hope you are successful in all your future endeavors.
		</p>
		<p>
			Regards,<br/>
			<span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		The school still has me down and not really in the mood to learn, but it&apos;s uplifting to know other people are on my side.
		Only one student so far has written to me and sided with the school, but a few have written to show their support.
		My response:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Hello <span class="redacted">[REDACTED]</span>,
		</p>
		<p>
			Thank you for your kind words, and I&apos;m glad I was able to help you in the past!
			Porting between languages is a great skill. It should help gain familiarity in both languages and their differences.
			I hope you find what you need for CS 1104, and I&apos;m sorry I can&apos;t help this time.
		</p>
		<p>
			Unfortunately, yeah, their threats and censorship had left me messed up for a couple terms and I&apos;m still lethargic when it comes time to complete my work.
			They&apos;ve sucked the joy out of studying for me.
			Still, I don&apos;t plan to give up. I&apos;ll complete my degree because I don&apos;t want to fail at this, I&apos;m just no longer enjoying doing it.
			I can&apos;t help but feel the quality of my work has gone down too, as I no longer have the emotional energy to pour into it.
		</p>
		<p>
			Kind regards,<br/>
			~ Alex Yst
		</p>
	</blockquote>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			It&apos;s because humans are terrible and don&apos;t care.
			Some of us are decent, but for the most part, we&apos;re a horrid species.
			We&apos;re selfish, and we don&apos;t care what kind of damage we do for future generations to deal with.
			For that matter, many people don&apos;t even think about what consequences today&apos;s actions will cause for themselves in only <strong>*five years*</strong>.
			As a group, we&apos;re incredibly short-sighted.
			We&apos;re also resistant to change.
			In the past, we didn&apos;t know of our impact, and our impact wasn&apos;t as bad.
			I mean, think of the pre-motor era; we weren&apos;t destroying the planet back then.
			As our impact grows, and as our understanding of that impact grows, we carry on this disregard.
			We don&apos;t want to change our behaviours, even knowing the consequences.
			Some people even <strong>*deny*</strong> the consequences.
			My mother, for example, refuses to believe that humans are the cause of climate change.
		</p>
	</blockquote>
</section>
END
);
